


in the kingdom of desert flowers

by WhirlyBird70



Category: One Piece
Genre: Alternate Universe - Royalty, Alternative Universe - Kingdom, F/F, First Kiss, Gift Fic, HAPPY BIRTH!!!!, Its vaguely fantasy as well because nami and lightning is too sweet to pass up but, Nami's a knight and Vivi's a queen, Romance, yeah.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-29
Updated: 2020-08-29
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:14:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26167720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhirlyBird70/pseuds/WhirlyBird70
Summary: Vivi smiles at her, hidden under a brown cloak that just barely shades her hair into something black instead of blue, and thanks her for paying for her drink. Nami smiles, says it’s no trouble at all even as her fellow knights in disguisegapeat her (for she’s spending extra money) and introduces herself.Nami,she says, truthful.Wednesday,Vivi says, untruthful, but it’s fine.Nami thinks she’s in love with the way she tilts her head anyway.
Relationships: Nami/Nefertari Vivi
Kudos: 24





	in the kingdom of desert flowers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [legendaryjars](https://archiveofourown.org/users/legendaryjars/gifts).



> happy birth <3333!!

Nami meets her queen on a hot summer day in a kingdom not her own. The queen is in disguise of course, and Nami is dressed not as the knight she is but a commoner, but she still thinks Vivi is the most beautiful woman she’s ever met.

Because, who else could this woman be but Nefertari Vivi, Queen of the flowered desert of Alabasta?

Vivi smiles at her, hidden under a brown cloak that just barely shades her hair into something black instead of blue, and thanks her for paying for her drink. Nami smiles, says it’s no trouble at all even as her fellow knights in disguise _gape_ at her (for she’s spending extra money) and introduces herself.

 _Nami_ , she says, truthful.

 _Wednesday_ , Vivi says, untruthful, but it’s fine.

Nami thinks she’s in love with the way she tilts her head anyway.

-

A conversation at the bar and Vivi is traveling with them. She’s Wednesday to them, Miss Wednesday to Sanji, and a love held deep in the heart for Nami. Vivi is still hiding, of course, and doesn’t tell them why she’s traveling with them beyond to get to the next town safely, but Nami knows the truth.

(There’s sand in her bag, spilling out and gleaming gold – living sand, sand from the Crocodile Man.)

She’s on the run, but not away from something – towards something, some chance at hope. Vivi loves her kingdom, or so Nami’s heard from the rumor mill spilling from Alabasta’s borders, so Nami knows she’s looking for something – some chance at victory.

Nami wants to be that chance – that guarantee. She wants her _family_ , her little of band of knights to be it – to save a kingdom again, but not just any kingdom this time.

Vivi’s kingdom.

Selfishly, she admits, she really just wants to see Vivi smile so gracefully at her again.

(She’s not a pirate in this life, selfishness isn’t a code she gleefully lives by any more. But her King, Luffy, Emperor of the Rising Sun, has always had a thing about freedom, so Nami’s free to love as fully and as little as she wants.

And _oh_ , does she love Vivi fully.)

-

There is a bounty hunter, three towns over, one that gets past Zoro’s swords and Usopp’s eyes and Franky’s shiny battle hull. He attacks Vivi with something _explosive_ and Luffy’s knocked out to the left and Nami’s too late to lunge forward but—

_But._

Vivi’s cowl whips off her head, showing a gleaming blue to the world, as she dashes forward underneath the hunter’s arm, her arm lashing out with precision. From her fingers peacock wings stretch out in deadly blades, cutting around the man’s stomach.

He’s down by the time Vivi spins him around, uncurling her whip from his waist.

 _Oh,_ Nami thinks.

_The Queen of Alabasta has never surrendered, or so the rumors say._

Vivi smiles at her, and places a hand on the circlet over her head, a remnant of a rule she supposedly doesn’t have. “Oops.”

The squares empty, cleared out when the first bomb flung forward, so no one’s here to see Vivi in all her glory, save for the Straw Hat band of wandering knights (and one King.)

She’s beautiful like this, bold and brave and daring, so Nami just laughs so happily at her sudden bashfulness.

“That’s okay, my Queen,” She says, tempted to wink but it’s too soon. “We all knew anyway.”

The smile Vivi gives her back, trusting and bright, is more than Nami will ever need to be happy.

-

Vivi, identity out in the open, smiles more freely now, more happily. She laughs at the antics of Nami’s crewmates, and leans into Nami’s armored shoulder in the night. Vivi’s dressed in the drabbest clothing she can find, save for the circlet around her head, but she wears everything like it’s the finest silk.

She’s beautiful, when she’s free and not worried about her sand-swallowed country when she’s dancing around a campfire.

Nami wishes it could be like this forever.

But the Straw Hats do not hesitate or falter in their steps. They agreed to save Alabasta, and so to Alabasta they travel.

They have been to the West before. Nami hopes they like it.

-

She explains to Vivi who the Straw Hats _are_ , past rumors and legends of tyrant defeating myths. She explains how Luffy is the King of the Kingdom of the East Sea, how he’s going to be the King of the Entire Sea ( _The Pirate King)_ one day, simply so he can travel anywhere he wants, so he can be free in the freest sense. She explains how she and the others are his loyal knights, his advisors, _his treasure_ , and how she would give her life to him if he asked it.

(She does not mention how Vivi has that same power over her.)

She tells Vivi of how they found the stairway to the sky, how they have friends in the Darkest Depths of the ocean; how Nami knows three other princesses but none as beautiful as Vivi and how their home when they are not on the road, on an _adventure_ , is a floating palace of the sea.

( _The Thousand Sunny_ , home to souls as bright as the sun, the zenith of the East Sea.)

Vivi laughs when tells her how they convinced Franky to don his shining metal armor, how Zoro, the first knight of Luffy’s kingdom, is lost anywhere, how they once met a man who could make centaurs out of ordinary folk. Vivi opens her mouth in awe when Nami tells her how they took Robin back from the very kingdom they are seeking to take, declared war with only a crew of six; how they have taken back kingdoms and defeated warlords and tyrants and emperors, all for a friend.

Vivi cries when Nami tells her they will do the same for her.

(She cries when Nami tells her they will take her with them if she wants.)

(Vivi’s selfless but Nami’s selfish, and maybe that’s why she doesn’t beg her to stay anyway.)

-

A week before Alabasta, Nami takes Vivi to the secret cove where she has been once before. It’s a five-minute walk from where their party rests on the beach, but enough to give them some semblance of privacy.

Nami kisses her, there, head tilted gently to the side. It is not chaste but nor it is desperate – if Nami was the romantic sort (which she is, despite her protests) she would called it _devoted_.

Funny, how much she loves this girl.

Her eyes are closed when they kiss but when she opens them, Vivi is looking at her with _love._

They kiss again and Nami doesn’t tell her how much she loves her, but she thinks Vivi knows it anyway.

(They hold hands on the way back to the group in the morning, and Nami thinks by the smile on her crew’s faces they know it too.)

-

The edge of Alabasta is sparse desert mixed with small plants. An hour in, it will be desert entirely, so they stop for the day, to start traveling at night, when it is a cool paradise amidst the desert heat. Vivi knows the land like she knows her people, and will guide them through safely.

They send letters out at the outpost, to Luffy’s brother who is running the kingdom in his absence and to the other which they may meet in Alabasta. They send letters to Cocoyashi, with pictures of a beautiful blue haired princess, and to the traveling places of the Baratie and Water 7.

The Straw Hats travel without thought of the past but they are figureheads of the kingdom. They do not forget those left behind.

(Nami shows Vivi the letters she writes Nojiko, hoping she’ll know that the letters she will send her love will be twice as long.)

-

Alabasta is hot and beautiful and dangerous all at once. _The Kingdom of the Desert Flowers, Kingdom of the Swallowing Dunes, Kingdom of Blooming Sands –_ no epithet could describe Alabasta in its entirety, how one could take a step forward and be drowned in sand without ever knowing, or be bit by a red snake hiding in the desert blossoms.

The heat burns her armor during the day and the coolness sinks through it at night. They stop in a town and Vivi shows her the armors of her own country, light weight and breathable and not meant for avoiding sturdy attacks or blocking blades like Nami’s armor is.

She likes it, likes the blue clothes that come with it, and vows to become faster, faster than she has ever been before, to use this armor to its fullest so she won’t drown in desert heat. For now, she and her crew dress in Alabastian fabrics, and hope it will be enough. Their armor is attached to the caravan they bring along, ready to face battle once they reach the palace.

Vivi laughs as Nami twirls in the silks and offers her hand in dance. She sings along to market songs, Vivi stumbling in her words after her, but it doesn’t matter. Its happy, this desert song, more so when Nami overhears that this particular dance is for newlyweds.

They travel onward, keeping to Alabasta’s sole river, and celebrate in the night.

-

In the middle of the desert is a city which rain has not blessed for three years. In that city lies a warlord, a man made of drifting sand, who has stolen the life from Alabasta, forcing its flowers to shrivel and die. In the city are a thousand people and a bomb, a secret rune that no one else will ever see.

In this city is a war for the people, and now, its victors in gleaming familiar armor.

Aluburna is Vivi’s home and now, her battleground.

Nami does not see her king disappear to take down a man without solid form, or the rest of her crew disappearing to fight their own battles.

Her eyes are on Vivi and the way she _screams_ for her people to stop, for just one moment, for forever, and Nami’s heart _hurts._

It is then, dressed in fabric and gleaming gold, that Nami _thunders._

She has torn down gods and tyrants before. She will harness that power and burn the _universe_ for this woman.

Nami wields lightning and devotion like a sword and _cuts_ the spirit of war in half.

The soldiers and rebels grow quiet, the leaders of the enemy forces gaping in _awe_ at this tempest knight, and rain – glorious _rain-_ falls down on desert flowers for the first time in years.

Vivi’s face as cool water splashes against it is _beautiful._ Nami can’t tell if its only rain, or tears as well, but Vivi is happy for the storm Nami wrought upon her kingdom, and –

Well.

_Nami loves her._

(A kingdom is saved that day, and a tyrant bleeds into sand as the sun sinks below the horizon. There are sacrifices, losses, but Nami holds Vivi in her arms as they stare out over a sea of sand and kisses her so softly that only the song of _victory_ rings into the night.

Alabasta blooms once more.

And like Nami’s love, it’s as gorgeous as the sun.)

-

Vivi waves them off with an _X_ carved into her wrist in black, a promise and a declaration that she is _treasured_ by this King’s Crew, and they wave back, ink on their own wrists.

There are tears in everyone’s eyes, and Zoro suggests they kidnap Vivi.

Everybody wants to – they know Vivi wants to as well.

They all know why they can’t.

(Vivi’s heart belongs to three things, and three things alone. Her country, her family, and her love.

Nami knows Vivi will always be _hers_ no matter where they are, but the desert of Alabasta and its people knows no such mercy.

Vivi must stay. But -)

“Hey Captain?” Nami asks, rubbing a hand on her wrist and her promise. “What do you say to a visit?”

By the answering grin on Luffy’s face, Nami knows she will hold her love again soon.

-

The Straw Hats sneak into the city at the dead of night, for no other reason than it is fun too, but Nami is the only one to reach the castle.

She’s silent in the night despite her armor. People do not call her _Thief_ for no reason after all. And now she has a heart to steal.

Dressed in Alabastian armor again, she won’t fail.

She climbs the tower, creeping over vines and flowers that crawl up sandy walls. Alabasta is a miracle in earthen tones, and if Nami did not like the way the wind blew so much, she thinks she would stay.

Soon, she reaches the top, where Vivi lies.

Nami taps on the window.

(A surprise, she hopes.)

It only takes one tap before Vivi is looking at her, smiling, leaning out to place a kiss on her cheek.

She’s speechless as Vivi laughs so prettily.

“I saw you coming, love. I know your habits.”

And, well, who is Nami to argue that?

Vivi jumps out the window next to her, already clad in traveling clothes still fit for a princess, and laughs again at Nami’s face. Another kiss graces her, before Vivi begins to steal away from her own kingdom.

“Let’s go!”

And _really_ – what can Nami do but agree with her?

-

They end up in a valley of flowers between desert cliffs, blooming in colors of red and orange and white, pink dotting the hillsides, as pretty as a sunset over the sea. They walk besides each other, Vivi on her horse, _Carue_ , and Nami, armored, walking through delicate thorns.

Every step is a little more peaceful. Every step Nami reveres this queen. Ever step Vivi looks at this knight, her knight, and feels something warm and bright fill her heart.

 _Wednesday,_ Vivi had introduced herself to Nami, and Nami had fallen in love.

 _Vivi!_ Nami had cried as she brought the storm to Vivi’s desert, and Vivi had known, then more than ever, that she loved her.

There are stolen moments like this, when they walk amongst the flowers, and Nami is so very good at stealing things despite her title of honorable _knight._

Nami steals this time with Vivi so often it feels like they never part.

(A permanent place on her wrist and in her heart, a love no god could ever break apart.)

The sunlight, warm and gentle, graces Vivi’s cheeks as Nami helps her from Carue, calloused hands fitting in place with calloused hands.

Flowers spread by Vivi’s feet, so beautiful, but there’s time to look at them later. For now, the freckles on Nami’s cheek brighten with her smile, the flow of her hair cascading down her back, and –

Vivi has seen portraits and queens and princesses across the world.

None compare to Nami’s glow.

A hand, ungloved and unarmored, caresses Vivi’s cheek then, as a pink, thornless rose is place behind her ear.

“I love you,” Nami says, and kisses her with her hands cupped around Vivi’s face.

 _I love you,_ says the feel of her lips, _I love you_ , says the x on her rest, _I love you,_ says the way Nami’s head rests on Vivi’s circlet when they pause for breath, _I love you,_ Nami says with her entire being.

“I love you,” Vivi says back, not like a queen but like the woman Nami fell in love with, and hopes the burning passion in her heart gets across.

By the way they both fall into the flowers, petals exploding around them as Nami’s armor carefully avoids bruising her, Vivi thinks it does.

(I love you, a queen says to the knight of a foreign country, and it would be a tragedy if it was any one but them.)

**Author's Note:**

> the writing shifts wildly in this because they were both written at very, very different times but i hope the transition is smooth enough thgjhk
> 
> Anyway, this is for onepiecehcs based off of her Knight Au [Knight](https://onepiecehcs.tumblr.com/post/616313650582634496/babe-theres-something-lonesome-about-you) [Au!](https://onepiecehcs.tumblr.com/post/615697287225720832/onepiecehcs-you-want-me-to-love-you-with)!!!!
> 
> Please go check her amazing art out and leave lots of reblogs and comments and love in your wake !!!
> 
> Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed!
> 
> \- Whirly
> 
> [My Tumblr!](https://whirlybirdwhat.tumblr.com)


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